Medicine, Rationality and Experience: An Anthropological Perspective

Simply put, the interdisciplinary group of anthropologists, physicians, and others at Harvard have been doing some of the most important and far-reaching work in the area of medical anthropology ever. Byron Good's book, initially given as the Henry Louis Morgan Lectures at Rochester, is a beautifully written and accessible summation of much of the innovative thinking going on with his colleagues and former students --- most notably folks like MaryJo Delvecchio Good, Art Kleinman, Lawrence Cohen, Pete Guarnaccia, Carol Mattingly, and others. The major controversies facing anthropology and medicine have been legion, and the discipline has, indeed, been put to ethically-suspect use in service to imperialist ends before. However, as Good argues so effectively, there is still much use for medical anthropology to serve progressive ends in a democratically-ordered world.

Simply put, the interdisciplinary group of anthropologists, physicians, and others at Harvard have been doing some of the most important and far-reaching work in the area of medical anthropology ever. Byron Good's book, initially given as the 1990 Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures at Rochester, is a beautifully written and accessible summation of much of the innovative thinking going on with his colleagues and former students --- most notably folks like MaryJo Delvecchio Good, Art Kleinman, Lawrence Cohen, Pete Guarnaccia, Carol Mattingly, and others. The major controversies facing anthropology and medicine have been legion, and the discipline has, indeed, been put to ethically-suspect use in service to imperialist ends before. However, as Good argues so effectively, there is still much use for medical anthropology to serve progressive ends in a democratically-ordered world.